Ships of less than a hundred tonnes have firmpoints instead of hardpoints. A firmpoint on a small craft is a fixed mount (typically forward-facing, but there is no requirement for this), but can be upgraded to a single (not double or triple) turret.

Sometimes you can overlook or forget about rules.

Seems pretty firm at a tonne volume, requiring an energy point to operate, costs two hundred kiloschmuckers, and is available at technological level seven, basically what a hard pointed one is.

1. It's a single turret.

2. Weapon system energy requirements are reduced by a quarter, you'd assume that the weapon system is also considerably smaller.

3. Rounding up is to simplify accountancy, on a smallcraft more exactitude should be used.

4. And, it's one turret or mounted fixture per weapon system.

I'd retcon the firmpoint to a half tonne volume, three quarters of an energy point to operate, at a cost of a hundred and fifty thousand schmuckers.

Read More:
Settling Arguments About Hydrogen With 168 Giant Lasershttps://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/16/sc...
“With gentle pulses from gigantic lasers, scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California transformed hydrogen into droplets of shiny liquid metal. Their research, reported on Thursday in the journal Science, could improve understanding of giant gas planets like Jupiter and Saturn whose interiors are believed to be awash with liquid metallic hydrogen.”

What in the World Is Metallic Hydrogen?https://www.space.com/39370-what-is-b...
“On Earth, as we've seen, hydrogen's behavior is straightforward. But Jupiter isn’’t Earth, and the hydrogen found in abundance within and beneath the great bands and swirling storms of its atmosphere can be pushed beyond its normal limits.”

Insulator-metal transition in dense fluid deuteriumhttp://science.sciencemag.org/content...
“The conditions in which hydrogen disassociates and becomes an atomic metal occur in high-energy-density environments, such as the interiors of giant planets and nuclear explosions. Celliers et al. trained 168 lasers on deuterium samples at the National Ignition Facility to measure the pressure and temperature conditions of the hydrogen transition.”

Researchers from MIT have flown a plane without moving parts for the first time. It is powered by an ‘ion drive’ which uses high powered electrodes to ionise and accelerate air particles, creating an ‘ionic wind’. This wind drove a 5m wide craft across a sports hall. Unlike the ion drives which have powered space craft for decades, this new drive uses air as the accelerant. The researchers say it could power silent drones.

The difference between a specialization like gunnery, and comprehensive system management, would appear to be an increase in technological level, and doubling the bandwidth.

Within a single computer, sensor and control network, having more than one, or similarly grouped, ship system controlled by a crew virtualization programme requires doubling the bandwidth, possibly to ensure that the threads are parallel and buffered, and don't collide and give conflicting commands, especially at inconvenient moments (I'm not a programmer, so what do I know?).

You can probably pro rata the bandwidth, and purchasing the programmes, instead of just getting a set number of five or ten virtual crewmembers.

If you just let the computer run a single specialization, you can keep it at virtual gunner type bandwidth.

Of course, I got interested in this aspect as I was wondering how to squeeze in an astrogation workstation in a double cockpit, and realized I actually didn't need to, as long as I had a powerful enough computer; you could also just insert a prerecorded astrogation tape.

Spaceships: Engineering, Propulsion and Metallic Hydrogen - Most Powerful Rocket Fuel Yet?
Since so many people are asking - what's the deal with Metallic Hydrogen and claims that it would be the most powerful chemical rocket fuel.

Why Next Generation Rockets are Using Methane
ULA's Vulcan rocket will be propelled Blue Origin's BE-4 engine and spaceX's next generation engine is the Raptor. Both are using Methane as a fuel rather than RP-1 or Hydrogen - so why is methane suddenly an ideal fuel for rockets after largely being ignored for half a century.

But what is “Titanium Steel”? Titanium is a metal, also know as Ti or by its atomic number 22. It is very hard to work with and thus very expensive to make.

2. Steel

Steel, however, is an alloy made from basically iron and carbon; and it is very cheap. They are typically sold by the pound. Its more expensive cousin is Stainless Steel, which has a bit of Chromium, Nickel, Silicon, Manganese and Nitrogen in it. It does not rust and is nice and shiny. But take a look all around you, Stainless Steel is everywhere. steel H Bar

3. Why sell stuff that doesn't exist?

So why bother with the term “Titanium Steel”? The obvious reason is money. If an unscrupulousness retailer can make you think a piece of stainless steel that looks like Titanium is worthy of being Jewelry, then they can and will charge you for it.

4. Who else is guilty?

The outrageous part is the participation and complacency of major E-Commerce Sites that allow these false advertising to continue. When pressed, these sites and their retailers will claim that “Titanium Steel” is actually an adjective describing the noun; a ring, a bracelet, a watch, etc. They will never claim that the material is actually made from Titanium Steel because “Titanium Steel” does not exist.

5. Making wise choices

fake or genuine So the next time you see this deception, give a shout to the E-Commerce Site to stop this madness. If you buy a Gold ring, it should be Gold. If you buy a Titanium ring, it should be Titanium. But if you buy a “Titanium Steel” ring, it shouldn't be Titanium looking Stainless Steel.

Scientists Invent a New Steel as Strong as Titanium
South Korean researchers have solved a longstanding problem that stopped them from creating ultra-strong, lightweight aluminum-steel alloys.

From shipping containers to skyscrapers to turbines, good old steel is still the workhorse of our modern world. Now, scientists are discovering new secrets to make the material better, lighter, and stronger.

Today a team of material scientists at Pohang University of Science and Technology in South Korea announced what they're calling one of the biggest steel breakthroughs of the last few decades: an altogether new type of flexible, ultra-strong, lightweight steel. This new metal has a strength-to-weight ratio that matches even our best titanium alloys, but at one tenth the cost, and can be created on a small scale with machinery already used to make automotive-grade steel. The study appears in Nature.

"Because of its lightness, our steel may find many applications in automotive and aircraft manufacturing," says Hansoo Kim, the researcher that led the team.

Bend, Don't Break
The key to creating this new super-steel was overcoming a challenge that had plagued materials scientists for decades. In the 1970's, Soviet researchers discovered that adding aluminum to the mix when creating steel can make an incredibly strong and lightweight metal, but this new steel was unavoidably brittle. You'd have to exert lots of force to reach the limit of its strength, but once you did, the steel would break rather than bend.

Scientists soon realized the problem: When creating the aluminum-steel alloy, they were occasionally fusing atoms of aluminum and iron together to form tough, crystalline structures called B2. These veins and nuggets of B2 were strong but brittle—until Kim and his colleges devised a solution.

"My original idea was that if I could somehow induce the formation of these B2 crystals, I might be able to disperse them in the steel," he says. The scientists calculated that if small B2 crystals were separated from one another, then the surrounding alloy would insulate them from splintering.

Kim and colleagues spent years devising and altering a method of heat-treating and then thinly rolling their steel to control when and where B2 crystals were formed. The team also discovered that adding a small percentage of nickel offered even more control over B2 formation, as nickel made the crystals form at a much higher temperature.

More Super-Materials to Come?
Kim's team has created the new metal on a small scale. But before it can be mass-produced, researchers must confront a tricky production issue.

THIS NEW METAL HAS A STRENGTH-TO-WEIGHT RATIO THAT MATCHES EVEN OUR BEST TITANIUM ALLOYS
Currently, steelmakers use a silicate layer to cover and protect mass-produced steel from oxidation with the air and contamination from the foundry. This silicate can't be used for Kim's steel because it has a tendency to react with the cooling aluminum, compromising the final product. Before we starting building skyscrapers out of super-steel, they'll have to figure out a way to protect the material out in the real world.

It'll be worth it. The final product of all this tinkering "is 13 percent less dense compared to normal steel, and has almost the same strength-to-weight ratio compared to titanium alloys," Kim says. That's remarkable, but Kim insists that the method is actually more important than the result. Now that his results are published, he expects scientists to cook up a multitude of new alloys based on the B2-dispersion method.

Large ventral keel structure: that alone should make it a dispersed structure, or maybe that would be loopholed as a breakaway hull, considering the amount of armour Mon Calamari ships tend to be plated with.

I don't quite see how benefits a warship the most infamous examples being the Nebulon B.

Converting a giant merchantman into a warship probably isn't worth it, since at some point you'd be expected to include a spinal mount, which isn't possible to install as an afterthought. Unless you attach an extra extra large gun pod, possibly to a couple of fifty tonne docking clamps.

Once ships start mounting bay weapons, the number of missiles they can throw at their enemies increases significantly. When multiple salvoes of missiles (or torpedoes) are incoming, even the finest sensor operator can become quickly overwhelmed. To counter this, large warships tend to have multiple sensor stations operated by several dedicated crew members.

1. There's no set number of sensor operators, just a recommendation.

2. Sensor operators are basically data analysts, enabling the commander to keep track of simultaneous events and react to them in real time.

3. For every sensor operator, one event can be kept track of.

4. Each sensor operator would need a work station.

5. Going by cockpit specifications, each work station requires one tonne of volume and costs ten thousand schmuckers.

6. You could have a specific AWACS vessel dedicated to this, and as long as it's part of the task group network, probably can share the data in a timely manner.

Spaceships: KSP Doesn't Teach - Rocket Engine Plumbing
A huge part of rocket science is the system of tanks, piping, valves and burners which deliver the fuel from the tanks to the engine. I try to explain why different designs exist and the advantages that more complicated designs deliver.

To be clear, I'm not a rocket scientist, I only play one on the internet.

Discussions about batteries often revolve around energy density. What we want is a battery that stores a whole lot of energy in a very tiny volume, preferably in a manner that doesn't involve explosions or fire. At the cutting edge of research, what we get are batteries that are a mix of amazing and amazingly bad.

Modern batteries are, quite frankly, a miracle compared to ye olde lead acid battery. Yet they still contain less energy per unit mass than the equivalent mass of wood. Essentially, we simply don’t pack enough atoms into a small enough volume to compete with hydrocarbons. But, now it seems that graphene—it’s always graphene—might help pack lithium in.

The invisible metal

Although there are many ways to make a lithium-ion battery, the chemistry boils down to the following: lithium is stored in some form at one electrode. The lithium is released as an ion, where it travels to another electrode and reacts. At the same time, the electrons that complete the reaction travel out into the world via one electrode, do some work, and end up at the other electrode, where they complete the reaction.

The key here is that the lithium is usually stored as a light and low-density lithium carbide. Finding materials that increase the density of lithium is one way to increase battery capacity.

Here is where battery research often runs into problems. Lithium is a very light element. Carbon, the other main constituent of a battery, is also a very light element. When viewed through an electron microscope, they look almost identical. That makes it very difficult to examine how lithium builds up at an electrode and makes it hard to see the variations in structures that it forms as it is stored (or how those structures come apart as it is removed).

It is worse than that, though. Electron microscopes usually use quite energetic electrons to create an image. The electrons have more than enough energy to knock carbon and lithium atoms out of the structure being examined. By the time you have created your image, you have destroyed the structure you imaged. Not ideal.

Enter a group of scientists with a transmission electron microscope that has been designed to work with low-energy electrons. The microscope still has sufficient resolution to see single atoms, so structures can be determined. By examining how much energy the electrons lose as they go through the sample, the researchers can also figure out the sample contents. Finally, the time it takes to gather the image is short enough (about one second) that the researchers can observe the build up and decay of structures as the battery is used.

A lithium sandwich

Since transmission electron microscopy requires that electrons pass through the sample, the carbon-lithium layer had to be very thin. The researchers chose to use a ribbon of a graphene double-layer (graphene is a single layer of graphene with the carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb pattern). A blob of electrolyte-containing lithium ions was placed at one end of the graphene ribbon.

A series of electrodes were placed along the ribbon to measure and set voltages. The voltages were used to drive lithium into the ribbon and allow it to leave again. When lithium accumulates in the ribbon, the resistance drops, allowing a second set of electrodes to detect the presence of lithium.

The researchers don’t say it, but I think they were quite surprised by what happened. The lithium moves quite rapidly in the gap between the two graphene ribbons. On the scale of their graph, lithium appears between the electrodes instantly. From the movie, it looks like it takes about 14s to travel 50 micrometers, which I think is shockingly fast.

The amount of lithium is also pretty surprising. By examining the structure and elemental composition, the researchers found that the lithium was not forming a lithium carbide, as expected. Instead, it was forming multiple layers of crystalline lithium with only the outermost layer binding to the carbon. But the metallic lithium was not in its usual form. Instead, the lithium forms a high-density state that is normally found at low temperature or very high pressure.

Don’t get overexcited

This is quite interesting, and it may even prove useful. But not yet. For one thing, the high-density lithium only forms between two sheets of very nearly perfect graphene, not the sort of graphene that you can buy from a manufacturer. Indeed, near the edges of imperfections, the energy imparted by the electrons in the electron microscope was enough to boil off the lithium metal.

Even if we could get large amounts of high-quality, double-layer graphene sheets, there is no certainty that the lithium will diffuse as deeply as required during a charging cycle. It is pretty easy to imagine the first lithium ion building up in a clump that blocks the rest of the lithium from moving into the sandwich.

It is also not certain that the graphene survives the process for very long. This is one of the main problems with batteries involving metallic lithium: the electrodes destroy themselves over multiple cycles. We’ve no idea if graphene will last any longer than current electrode designs.

That said, the researchers are not presenting this as a battery-ready technology. Rather, it is an excellent example of how an experimental necessity has led to an interesting new set of observations that we will probably learn a lot from. And, if we are lucky, it will eventually help make batteries better.